Sunday, March 7th, is cold and windy. Tension grips the city, and the air seems pregnant with potential violence. Cars filled with white thugs prowl the Selma streets looking for trouble. Just over the Edmund Pettus bridge, a swarm of state troopers, possemen, and sheriff's deputies wait by the highway. They are itching for action. John Carter Lewis, a Black dishwasher, is stopped on his way home from work. Two troopers attack him, striking him with their clubs, breaking his arm and bloodying his head.
After Sunday services, some 400 marchers gather at Brown Chapel. Some are still in their Sunday suits and dresses, others carry knapsacks and rolled up blankets tied with rough twine. Their mood is somber. Somber, but determined. There is little of the spirited singing that so marked previous protests.
We expected a confrontation. We knew that Sheriff Clark had issued yet another call the evening before for even more deputies. Mass arrests would probably be made. There might be injuries. Most likely, we would be stopped at the edge of the city limits, arrested and maybe roughed up a little bit. We did not expect anything worse than that. — John Lewis. [11]
Even though we had been demonstrating for two years now, we had the uneasiness that this was going to be a different day — uneasiness is to put it mildly, if not euphemistically, because frankly it was a fear, it was a terror that was going through us all. We were scared, because we didn't know what was going to happen. — Charles Bonner, Selma student leader. [14]
The MCHR medical team sets up a first aid station at Brown Chapel — a table, a mattress, and some basic medical supplies. With horns blaring, a car caravan of 200 marchers from Perry County rolls in and unloads. Off to the side, SCLC divides its field workers into two groups, those who will march and presumably end up in jail, and those who will stay behind to mobilize a follow-on protest. James Bevel, Andrew Young, and Hosea Williams flip coins to decide who will lead the march in King's absence.
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